March 11/11 12:13 pm - Paris Nice: Stage 6

Results from today's 6th stage in France. The stage was won by Tony Martin ( HTC - Highroad).

Ryder Hesjedal (Team Garmin - Cervelo) finished 49th at 3:03 behind the winner, now is 22nd in the overall.

HTC-Highroad's Tony Martin Takes Lead after ITT Win

Tony Martin has powered into the overall lead of Paris-Nice after taking a convincing individual time trial victory in the race's sixth stage, from Rognes to Aix-en-Provence.

Already the fastest at the intermediate time check, the HTC-Highroad rider confirmed his domination of the 27 kilometer stage when he crossed the finish line with a 20 second advantage over Britain's Bradley Wiggins, with Richie Porte of Australia in third at 39 seconds.

Whilst Martin averaged an impressive 48.5kmh average for the rolling course, young team-mate Tejay Van Garderen also turned in a very strong ride, finishing tenth on the stage 1-29 back.

With two days racing remaining, the German National Time Trial Champion now leads with a 39 second advantage on former leader Andreas Klöden, with Bradley Wiggins third.

"It was a good course for me, not too technical and with really good roads, and I knew I could do well on it," Martin said later, "I started out full gas, saw I had a good advantage at the time check, and then tried to keep everything under control on the final climb."

"Yesterday [Thursday] had been a hard ride through the mountains, and I didn't keep anything back for today, so it was tough going both days. There were no particular tactics, just going all out."

Martin says he is optimistic about his chances in the two mountainous stages to come."I'm confident I'll take the leader's jersey all the way to Nice, but in a race as nervous as this one you can never be too certain of anything."

"It is a race I like, though two years ago I took the King of the Mountain's jersey here, and I've always thought I could maybe win it some time. I've got a good chance."

"We could see from the start of today's stage Tony was going really strong and he kept it up right the way through," commented HTC-Highroad sports director Jan Schaffrath, "We weren't using time references, Tony had checked out the course around midday and he knew what he had to face."

"He went full gas to the top of the one climb and then rode within himself to the finish."